A newcomer's experience and what can be done about it

Am 11.11.2011 10:36, schrieb Andreas Weidner:

>> - If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

>> fine for me as well.

 

EAGLE's default key combinations are a bit lame (nearly nothing is

predefined), but you can do this yourself with 'Optionen -

Tastenbelegung' (or whatever its English representation). As a matter of

fact, I defined

ASSIGN C+Y 'REDO'

ASSIGN C+Z 'UNDO'

which is perhaps what you want. Mind that EAGLE's key combinations are

Sorry, I should have explained in more detail.

Ctrl+Y is assigned to Redo in my installation of Eagle already.

What I wanted to describe was that:

In a previous version of MS Powerpoint I could e.g.

  - import some pictures

  - right mouse click on a picture -> Size

  - Enter e.g. 50%

  - select the next picture

  - Presss Ctrl+Y (Redo) to apply the last action to the selected picture

This has saved me a lot of time when preparing reports (*).

Of course, that won't work with the current selection model that Eagle

has.

One may argue that this still requires more clicks an keys than your

CLI solution, but I think that it would be acceptable for most users as

you can e.g. select with the right hand and hit Ctrl+Y with the left

hand. A left-hand-keyboard plus right-hand-mouse usage concept is what

I'm missing most in Eagle.

The nice thing about a re-do feature is that, if it's implemented

the right way, it can be used 'orthogonally' to other actions.

Therefore it could compensate for some of the features you would loose

with a 'Windows' selection model vs. the current Eagle usage model.

(*) I just checked, and it seems that this feature is no longer

     available  in MS Office 2007. As its such a useful feature, I would

     have expected that more applications would implement it.

See also my post 'Useful keyboard shortcuts' from 2011-07-22 in

'eagle.support.eng'.

Thanks. I picked some of these.

(I did post in that thread also at that time...)

Regards,

Dietmar

"Andreas Weidner" <andreas.weidner@aei.mpg.de> wrote in message

news:j9f5q4$qt9$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

 

First, it is important to weight the time you use on these different actions

when thinking GUI. I dont mind spending more time on selecting a component

if I spend <<1% of the time doing it. The largest chunk of time goes into

precision-placing (and other nitpicking). Its the nitpicking actions that

needs to go fast.

That is very true. I wanted also to point out that some of the examples arguing the CLI efficiency are not from the real pcb-design world. I can't imagine people just droping and forgetting the components on the board. In particular on high- or very high density boards there is a lot of precision-placing going, and this is done after the initial, coarse placement, most probably several times. I designed many UHF boards, where you have additional constraints so that re-placing and re-orientating parts in order to minimise interconection's lenght or cross-talk is done many times. There is no help a CLI can provide to that. On the contrary, a well-thought GUI can.

A proper GUI would let you select the components you want to change with

either a select window drag (not having to activate the group) like a

powerpoint presentation design. It will also let you add and remove using

ctrl (or shift) selects like you do in a (win) filebrowser. Also, a filter

selection tool could help you add component based on name or other

parameters.

Yes, yes, yes!

Lix

Am 11.11.2011 10:57, schrieb Morten Leikvoll:

A proper GUI tool would pick a device from the selection (where last used

will be in your face) and present it at the mousepointer for you to place

wherever you want until you press esc, right mouse button or select some

other tool.

The problem here is NOT how to put the part in your schematics (that's

easy with ALL programs), but how to FIND the part you want to place.

Browsing through libraries with the mouse is ONE possibility, typing

things in the ADD dialog is another, the CLI is a third.

See first point. A filter selection tool would solve this in notime. It will

be blindingly fast too, maybe faster.

Yes, a filter selection tool would be nice. BUT either the filter dialog

needs LOTS of rather complicated options (I have one of these in my

musical notation program), or it just allows entering TEXT (e.g., with

wildcards). The former needs additional time and learning curve, the

latter is basically the same as the CLI, but just inside a dialog.

Please don't misunderstand me: I LOVE programs with a nice user

interface, and I even prefer a nice user interface to using the CLI. BUT

only provided that things in the CLI work either BETTER than the CLI or

QUICKER, or have some other advantage.

Examples:

  1. Once upon a time, there was NO connection dialog in EAGLE, so pins

     and packages HAD to be connected with the CLI. I thoroughly HATED

     that, because it was painfully SLOW (yes, even though it was the

     CLI), complicated and REALLY error-prone. The connect DIALOG

     is MUCH better, and I will never, ever use the CLI for that again.

  2. The DRC has BILLIONS of options. I would NOT want to write all

     of that rubbish somewhere in the CLI. The dialog is MUCH more

     comfortable.

Yes it is, but I still think you can make it equally useful and beautiful

using GUI. And it can make new users ramp up faster. Of course that is in

Cadsoft's interest, not the exisiting users.

It is even in MY interest, because every time our newbies find out how

to do things in EAGLE on their own, that's time NOT needed to tell them.

BUT at the moment, some people just claim 'throw the CLI away'. That is

NOT how things should be done, because the CLI is VERY useful. Even if

one HATES it, some things can be done MUCH quicker, or even ONLY with

it. Throwing it away would severly cripple EAGLE.

IF in the (not-foreseeable) future, EAGLE's user interface will be SO

intuitive, SO clear, SO well-thought-of, SO fast to respond, etc., THEN

it MAY perhaps be time to throw away the CLI. Quite definitely NOT NOW!

You cannot make a software better by FIRST throwing away its expert

user's functions and only AFTERWARDS thinking about how to implement

those functions with a nice GUI. Please first things first.

There have been some nice ideas and proposals about HOW to make EAGLE

more user-friendly, and some of them could (and should) be implemented.

Andreas Weidner

"Andreas Weidner" <andreas.weidner@aei.mpg.de> wrote in message

news:j9f5q4$qt9$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

First, it is important to weight the time you use on these different actions

when thinking GUI. I dont mind spending more time on selecting a component

if I spend <<1% of the time doing it. The largest chunk of time goes into

precision-placing (and other nitpicking). Its the nitpicking actions that

needs to go fast.

1. Starting commands or actions:

    You do NOT click on the 'value' button, but just type 'v'

    (+return) into the CLI. This of course works, but it is NOT

    really the most wonderful time saver. It's effective and OK

    with me, but nobody NEEDS a command line for that.

A proper GUI would let you select the components you want to change with

either a select window drag (not having to activate the group) like a

powerpoint presentation design. It will also let you add and remove using

ctrl (or shift) selects like you do in a (win) filebrowser. Also, a filter

selection tool could help you add component based on name or other

parameters.

Then when right clicking one of the selected parts, it would pop up a

property window where all properties are presented (and props with different

values are marked as "dont change" by default), and it will give you the

option to overwrite them with a new value. Why should that be time

consuming?

2. Starting commands with options:

    If you need to change the value of 64 capacitors to '100n'

    (because you have 32 opamps in your circuit), you can do it

    WITHOUT the CLI by

     - clicking on each of them and

     - entering '100n' for each of them.

    That's a LOT of work (1 click and 5 keystrokes per part).

    If you're clever, you only type '100n' ONCE, put the text in

    the clipboard and insert it in the edit field every time.

    That's better, put STILL some work (1 click and 2 keystrokes

    per part). Using the CLI, you

     - type 'v 100n' (+return) and

     - then click on every capacitor.

    This is much less work and consumes much less time (1 click

    per part and ONCE '100n').

 

    But I agree with you that this IS a point where a better user

    interface would melt down the CLI advantage to zero: If EAGLE

    would support changing values for GROUPS, the CLI would NOT

    be necessary for this anymore. So the CLI is very useful NOW,

    but would NOT be necessary for an optimised interface.

Same as above.

3. Selecting library objects:

    When inserting a library part into a design, the PURE mouse

    user

     - clicks on 'add',

     - clicks on LOTS of library tree branches for browsing

       (especially when it's not clear in which library to

       search for the component),

     - selects the part,

     - clicks OK

    and has the part at the mouse cursor for positioning. For

    components that you know nothing of, that's the method of

    choice. But it takes a LOT of time. If you know the NAME

    of your component, you

     - click on 'add',

     - enter the name of the component,

     - click OK

    and have it at your mouse cursor for positioning. That is

    MUCH quicker, but still needs several mouse clicks PLUS

    a bit of typing. Using ONLY the CLI, you

     - just type 'add r' (+return),

    which obviously is VERY fast.

A proper GUI tool would pick a device from the selection (where last used

will be in your face) and present it at the mousepointer for you to place

wherever you want until you press esc, right mouse button or select some

other tool.

    I checked this just now with MY libraries and the component

    'R': Pure mouse usage takes 12 seconds (ONLY 12, because I

    know in which library to find the resistor), mouse usage with

    dialog text entry takes 6 seconds, CLI takes 1-2 second.

 

    Here, EAGLE has a GOOD user interface that allows for

    mouse usage as well as wildcard text editing etc. It might be

    that there are methods to further speed up that dialog, but

    it will NEVER be as quick as the CLI.

 

    Of course this needs a useful and easy-to-remember part

    naming scheme, which the standard libraries of EAGLE do NOT

    provide, but hey, this is NOT a problem of the CLI, but the

    libraries.

 

4. Selecting board objects:

    You created a schematic with 20 opamps, 50 capacitors, 50

    resistors and other stuff, and now switch to the board: All

    components are placed SOMEWHERE, and, if you zoom to the

    whole board, you cannot even read their names, because the

    texts are too small (due to the sheer number of components

    on screen). If you now want to place all components around

    opamp N1 ONLY using the mouse, you

     - zoom in sufficiently to be able to read all names,

     - pan and search until you find the desired component,

     - click on it, pan back again to where it SHOULD be placed,

     - place it,

     - pan back to search for the NEXT component, etc.

    This works, but takes FOREVER.

    Using the CLI, you

     - zoom (with the mouse!) to the EMPTY area where you

       WANT your opamp to be placed,

     - activate the MOVE command (by typing or via mouse),

     - type 'n1' (+return) in the CLI and can place your part

       immediately. No searching, no panning, no scrolling

       necessary.

     - After placing THAT part, you type the name of the NEXT

       one and can IMMEDIATELY place it.

    This is BLINDINGLY FAST and saves MUCH MORE than ten times

    the work necessary with pure mouse usage.

See first point. A filter selection tool would solve this in notime. It will

be blindingly fast too, maybe faster.

    And in this case, there is NO possibility to EVER do this

    decently with a user interface, because the user interface

    would be nothing else but an edit field where you needed

    to type in your component name, anyway (which behaves

    exactly like the CLI, so why get rid of the CLI and build

    something new into the user interface that behaves like

    a CLI?).

Lost you there. I say it can.

Therefore, the EAGLE command line is NOT the tool of choice for beginners

or people who just need to activate a certain command, but one for people

who know a BIT about EAGLE (they need NOT be specialists) and want to

GREATLY speed up their work IN CERTAIN AREAS. For the areas mentioned

above, you do NOT need to learn crazy or complicated syntax, but just

- VALUE <value>

- ADD <devicename>

- MOVE <componentname>

which is REALLY easy and saves you lots of time. ENJOY!

 

And just for fun, I quote again:

there are a couple of

die-hard users that would rather get rid of one of their fingers

than of the CLI.

 

- I MIGHT be a die-hard user, but

- I do not like the CLI because I love typing or hate the

   mouse (as a matter of fact I LOVE scroll wheel mice), but

- just because it's REALLY USEFUL.

Yes it is, but I still think you can make it equally useful and beautiful

using GUI. And it can make new users ramp up faster. Of course that is in

Cadsoft's interest, not the exisiting users.

I think I'll make a thread about it, so we can actually discuss (or tear

down) the CLI/GUI myths.

Andreas Weidner

 

PS: Of course you CAN enter crazy and complicated syntax into the command

line. But who the heck wants to do that? MUCH better to keep it simple...

Am 10.11.2011 20:22, schrieb Dietmar Schwertberger:

Example 4 "Selecting board objects":

This is addressing a common task costing a lot of time.

His CLI solution is nice, but this is such a standard

task that I would expect to be able to:

- go to the schematic

- select one opamp together with the capacitors etc.

- do e.g right mouse click "Place selection on PCB"

->

- Eagle switches to PCB

- the selected components are hanging at the mouse pointer

- the components are arranged as they were in the schematic

- Shift-Scrollwheel allows to move them closer/apart

- Rest of the functionality as with the MOVE command.

Of course I would expect a warning if a component has been

placed before or even a routed connection.

THAT sounds like a VERY useful function. CadSoft, please put this on the

wish list for EAGLE 6, 7 or 8 - thanks...

The actual implementation shouldn't be really difficult, because EAGLE

can just create a corresponding board group from out of the schematics

group and place it accordingly. There might be some problem in getting

the closer/apart function realised or calculating whether or not a

component already HAS been placed, but these things seem to be surmountable.

Btw. the example of 20 opamps plus caps could probably be solved

even faster with hierarchical design/layout or another easy way of

re-use (e.g. select group of devices; right mouse click "Copy

including layout").

Not really. Most of these are a bunch of small not-repeated filters,

integrators, etc., where neither schematics nor layout can be copied

decently. But of course hierarcgical design WOUL be nice.

- If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

fine for me as well.

EAGLE's default key combinations are a bit lame (nearly nothing is

predefined), but you can do this yourself with 'Optionen -

Tastenbelegung' (or whatever its English representation). As a matter of

fact, I defined

   ASSIGN C+Y 'REDO'

   ASSIGN C+Z 'UNDO'

which is perhaps what you want. Mind that EAGLE's key combinations are

WINDOW specific, which means that it keeps different key combination

lists for its window types (schematic, board, device, symbol, package).

See also my post 'Useful keyboard shortcuts' from 2011-07-22 in

'eagle.support.eng'.

Andreas Weidner

"Olin Lathrop" <eagle@embedinc.com> wrote in message

news:j9h2pk$6uh$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

This is now the second time your whole message was duplicated.  It doesn't

seem to be a problem at element 14 since other users posting from there

don't have their messages duplicated.  Maybe it's a problem here at the

Eagle Central forums.  All I know is I see your message content repeated

in

the message but this doesn't happen from anyone else.

 

Quote:

>> Most of the comments only confirmed that your use of the CLI is the

>> result of Eagle's poor and incomplete GUI implementation.

 

Then you've taken away only what you wanted to hear.

 

Quote:

>> Some of you gave examples of how you can solve faster some tasks, but I

>> am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster with the CLI

>> than with a properly designed GUI

 

But you show no such examples.

I'd really like to ask Olin, what other pc tools do you drill as well as

Eagle? I hope you have some GUI tools you like, so we can have a balanced

discussion. You should  listen to those who have used many other tools, and

Lix is obviously has a broad experience. I all hear you do is defence of

the old style Eagle, and rtfm's..

I dare to say I've probably routed the biggest and most advanced layout in

Eagle (16 layer, HDI type2 with microvias, size 46x42cm, thats >18x16")

alone, for whatever that is worth, and I know both the CLI, ULP programming

and GUI well , and I DO agree with Lix. But I also think the CLI can stay

without causing damage to the GUI. But I believe that as GUI develops, most

users will turn to it.

I hear some crap what a GUI can't do efficiently. Of course a GUI will need

actions where you actually need to type stuff, like precise positions,

selection filters and so on. That is no argument to stay away.

I should also say I love what you can do with the CLI, but I dont like the

structure of it (I guess the CLI has the power of linux shells and all the

drawbacks too). Having to type magic characters (modifiers) to describe

mouse actions is very hacky and shows there was a GUI thought behind it, but

its boiled down to neither fish or bird, if you know what I mean.

Learning these special methods are much harder than a pure way.

Am 10.11.2011 01:27, schrieb Andreas Weidner:

Since the user claiming the '10 times faster' absurdity is ME, let me

give you some examples for command line usage (CLI), sorted by ascending

usefulness:

Thanks a lot for your very useful post.

It seems that there should be a CLI cookbook on the Cadsoft site...

Regards,

Dietmar

Am 10.11.2011 18:48, schrieb Olin Lathrop:

>> Some of you gave examples of how you can solve faster some tasks, but I

>> am sorry to tell you, almost none of them can be done faster with the CLI

>> than with a properly designed GUI

 

But you show no such examples.

That's easy.

I found Andreas' post very useful and informative.

Example 4 "Selecting board objects":

This is addressing a common task costing a lot of time.

His CLI solution is nice, but this is such a standard

task that I would expect to be able to:

  - go to the schematic

  - select one opamp together with the capacitors etc.

  - do e.g right mouse click "Place selection on PCB"

->

  - Eagle switches to PCB

  - the selected components are hanging at the mouse pointer

  - the components are arranged as they were in the schematic

  - Shift-Scrollwheel allows to move them closer/apart

  - Rest of the functionality as with the MOVE command.

Of course I would expect a warning if a component has been

placed before or even a routed connection.

Btw. the example of 20 opamps plus caps could probably be solved

even faster with hierarchical design/layout or another easy way of

re-use (e.g. select group of devices; right mouse click "Copy

including layout").

This would save me a lot of time when e.g. doing burn-in boards.

(I understand that hierarchical design is a major task to implement,

  but the "Copy including layout" should be rather easy.)

Example 2 "Starting commands with options":

That's something that I probably will use a lot from now.

But still:

  - I often have wondered why the Change command does not

    include an option to change the value.

  - If Eagle would support Ctrl-Y for Re-do, that would be

    fine for me as well.

Having CLI and ULPs for special tasks is very nice.

(E.g. a colleague used to use Eagle to automatically

  create semiconductor bonding diagrams.)

But having to use CLI and/or ULPs for standard tasks is a no-go

for most people.

Regards,

Dietmar

Olin,

I've checked on www.eaglecentral.ca and indeed, some of my messages apear duplicated. But if you check on element14, they are not. I guess there is a problem with the message replication.

Lix

Olin,

I don't see any duplicate message. Please explain.

I don't know what examples you're expecting me to show, I only know that with Accel Technology's P-CAD 2000 (that I use for more than 10 years now), I can do these examples in a very competitive amount of time. P-CAD has no CLI, BTW.

In fact, the project I just finished in Eagle was already done in P-CAD, but I wanted to learn Eagle. I remember I've spent less that three days to finish that project in P-CAD, and over two weeks in Eagle (reading once the whole manual not included!). True, Eagle was new to me while P-CAD I know by heart. It was the same project: drawing the schematic, creating the etherrnal missing parts in the library and laying out the PCB. Only the fact that Eagle runs on the Mac kept me on, otherwise I would have given up rather abruptly (P-CAD is a Windows only affair).

In reality I did not want to compare Eagle with P-CAD because everybody would have said that I use it as a reference (but now you forced me!). No, I don't want Eagle to behave as P-CAD (P-CAD has its own quirks), but I expect it to behave as a modern piece of software.

Regards,

Lix